What lunch do you send to school?

[eachpeachpearplum]

My Daughter will be starting 1st grade in the fall and I wanted to get advice from those who have been dealing with sending raw lunches this year so I may prepare.

Thanks a bunch! :p

[Mical]

The great thing about kids her age is their favorite foods are simple! My daughter is not 100% raw (I'm only two weeks raw) but I send her lunches to pre-K about 90% raw. This diet is so conducive to packed lunches I think:

Little tupperwares with: strawberries & blueberries are her favorite
Celery and carrot sticks with a little tiny tupperware of raw almond butter to dip in
And of course, apples, bananas, etc. . the fruits are always a hit, but of course, many I can't cut or peel, becuase they're "brown" by lunch, and no kid likes "brown" food
Oh, and my daughter loves sliced avocados. You can slice them inside the skin (cut in half, remove the pit, slice inside the skin, put pit back in and close it up . . . the pit helps preserve it).
Baggies of nuts and seeds.
Fruit Leathers
"fudge balls" for dessert (rolled in dehydrated coconut)
Viola. Packing is Soooo easy! I'm looking forward to other people's posts! great thread. :)

[eachpeachpearplum]

Thanks Mical! A good trick for brown fruit - acidulated water! Mix the juice of a lemon into a bowl of water and give the cut fruit a dunk, it warks a treat!

[Lunar*Fey]

I'm interested to see what others post as well, as I pack my own raw lunches every day. I have rawkinlocs' seed/fruit bars going in the dehydrator right now and will probably bring some of those. Sometimes I bring a raw creation of mine but usually I just have a simple salad with nuts or avocado on it. I also bring fruit. Sometimes I bring a salad and flax crackers. I don't know it varies but stays pretty simple. The other day I made banana bread cookies...those were delicious.

[eachpeachpearplum]

I'm interested to see what others post as well, as I pack my own raw lunches every day. I have rawkinlocs' seed/fruit bars going in the dehydrator right now and will probably bring some of those. Sometimes I bring a raw creation of mine but usually I just have a simple salad with nuts or avocado on it. I also bring fruit. Sometimes I bring a salad and flax crackers. I don't know it varies but stays pretty simple. The other day I made banana bread cookies...those were delicious.

OK, I must have the recipe for the banana bread cookies and could you post the link to Rawkinlocs see/fruit bars. . . .pleeeese!

EPPP

[vball_trk84]

oh lunar*fey! i was going to ask the same thing about posting the recipe for your banana bread cookies. sounds delish!!! thanks :)

[Conscious Midwife]

Not 100% raw
but when I take fruit to work i take a good knife and mix the fruit salad on site and share with coworkers.

My kids love peanut buter so or you folks who make nut butters this is grea on celery and apples.

The pack apples and carrots on a daily basis.

I use frozen bootles of water to keep thins cold and hen the water thaws just in time for lunch.

frozen grapes are a good treat too

[Mical]

Not 100% raw

I use frozen bootles of water to keep thins cold and hen the water thaws just in time for lunch.

frozen grapes are a good treat too

EeeeK! :eek: I hope the frozen water bottles aren't made from plastic. A chemical engineer from one of the big plastic companies has proven that when you freeze water in a plastic water bottle, it breaks down the plastic and releases massive amounts of toxins. (future alzheimers and cancer, I believe?)

Just a note of warning.

I love this thread. Getting great ideas here! ;)

[robertandenith]

do your kid likes granolas?

This is my granola recipe and it's great for lunch boxes!!!

mix in a bowl

oats
soaked sunflower seeds
some flax seeds (not soaked)
crust (walnuts and raisins in processor)
raw honey or agave

Mix with your hands, then make balls and flatten with your hands. Dehydrate.

These are our favorites!!!

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g126/robertandenith/Cocina/IMG_2853_1_1.jpg

[codajess]

Wow those look really good.

I have a question though, what benefit are you getting from the flax seeds if they aren't soaked or ground? From what I know if they aren't broken, the body can't digest them, so they pass right through.
Is it for texture or glue or taste or..?

[juliebove]

My daughter is not 100% raw but she does get plenty of raw foods in her lunches. She loves cucumber slices, baby carrots, celery sticks and slices of apple or pear. She will eat whole apples and pears but seems to prefer them sliced. She also likes grapes. She likes any kind of melon cut in cubes. Or fruit salad. If I make a fruit salad, I can sneak in bits of other fruits she wouldn't normally eat. She loves coleslaw! I sometimes send in tossed salads in those special containers designed to hold dressing in the lid. However she has decided she prefers the salads without the dressing. She also loves peas in the pod and radishes. Hummus is a favorite and she would eat this every day but she did not like the raw kind I made. I'll have to work on that. Sometimes she will eat sprouts, other times not. And she likes cashews. She only gets 20 minutes for lunch and since she is the type who loves to talk, she doesn't really eat much at school. I've learned to make sure she is well fed before school and to send in a small lunch so I'm not wasting a lot of food.

Another problem you might encounter is school parties and special treats. My main concern there is my daughter's food allergies. Most of the time what the kids are given is something she can't eat. So she feels left out. I discussed this with the teacher at the beginning of the year and sent in some treats that would be appropriate for her. I try to come in when they are having parties. There are several kids with food allergies so we always have things they can eat, like fresh fruit. Whatever I bring in, I bring enough for everyone, even though I know everyone won't always want to eat it. And treats don't have to be edible. Little kids like getting stickers and colorful pencils.

One thing that really annoyed me this year at the school parties is that most of the games they played involved foods my daughter could not eat. But because of the other kids with food allergies, she wasn't the only one. I had thought about being the class mom so that I would be in charge of all the parties, but I am disabled and this was really more work than I'm able to do. What the teacher did is have me be in charge of all the kids in the class with food allergies. This, I can handle. We have a special table for our games and activities. We may or may not do what the other kids are doing. Sometimes I am able to come up with the same game using different foods/ingredients/objects. Sometimes this isn't possible so I think of something else to keep them occupied. One of the kids has a severe peanut allergy and she told me she was very happy that I was doing this for them. She knows that whatever I bring in for them to do or eat is not going to cause her problems.

[Lunar*Fey]

The banana bread cookies I made were actually an idea given to me from Maydolphin...
quote of Maydolphin: "u could sprout and grind up the buckwheat and blend it w/ banana and stir in some raisins and some cinnamon to make banana bread cookies"

oh no! For some reason I can't find Rawkinlocs' fruit and seed bars. I tried them today and they were really good. I'll try to give the recipe for memory:
1 cup sesame seeds (sunflower seeds work as well, I used a mixture of the two)
.5 cup nuts (I used buckwheat as I didn't have any nuts)
1 banana
1 apple
raisins
yuummm

[robertandenith]

Wow those look really good.

I have a question though, what benefit are you getting from the flax seeds if they aren't soaked or ground? From what I know if they aren't broken, the body can't digest them, so they pass right through.
Is it for texture or glue or taste or..?

texture!!! makes them really crunchy :D I only add like 3 tbs though! You could add ground flax. You could anything else, like almonds, sesame seeds. Also if I have done almond milk, I add the almond left over from almond milk bag. oh yum, I want some now too! lol

[aromaticwings]

The banana bread cookies I made were actually an idea given to me from Maydolphin...
quote of Maydolphin: "u could sprout and grind up the buckwheat and blend it w/ banana and stir in some raisins and some cinnamon to make banana bread cookies"

oh no! For some reason I can't find Rawkinlocs' fruit and seed bars. I tried them today and they were really good. I'll try to give the recipe for memory:
1 cup sesame seeds (sunflower seeds work as well, I used a mixture of the two)
.5 cup nuts (I used buckwheat as I didn't have any nuts)
1 banana
1 apple
raisins
yuummm
something else you could add to these that my grandkids love is pumpkin seeds.. also the pumpkin seeds add alot of nutrition also for their busy little bodies..actually I add all seeds ..sunflower, sesame and pumpkin... love them for work also.. keeps me away from the vending machines... I also add some cacao and black strap Molassas instead of honey.. for different flavor... :D

[Rawkinlocs]

Y'all sure that was ME who posted a fruit and seed bar recipe? I don't recall it and I'd like to know what it was if they're that good! :D

[Boz]

I think it was sweetgoddess (carmel)

[Lunar*Fey]

Rawkinlocs, I don't know if you came up with the recipe...wait maybe it was sweetgoddess! I'm so sorry. I don't know. I could have sworn I came across an old post by you but now that I think about it, it probably was sweetgoddess. I am so sorry!!!

[Lunar*Fey]

Yep, I just found the post http://rawfoodtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1989&highlight=sesame+seeds
it was Sweetgoddess! oh I am SO sorry!

[eachpeachpearplum]

Hey thanks everyone - keep um comming! :)

[fiddle80]

Eating raw lunches is great, we also now have to be concerned about the packaging of our kids foods. Paperbags are great but they often don't come back home for re-use, many soft lunch boxes have been found to have high levels of lead in them. I found a great web site where you can order fun colored, re-useable lunch boxes with lots of little 'boxes' inside. I can't seem to find the site again though. Argh. I think I was searching lunch boxes though if that helps at all....quite vague I realize. hmm.

[CaptainSwab]

I am fairly certain that you are decribing one of these: http://www.laptoplunches.com/

I also have one of these lunch boxes and love it tons! It really forces me to bring healthier lunches.

[fiddle80]

thank you, that's the one. LapTop Lunches. I don't have them but they look good. Do you use the little containers? My only concern is that they are plastic but then I got to thinking what else could sticky, sloppy foods be transported in that isn't breakable.....

[greenqueen]

My son is 12 months, and is not raw, but I pack many raw lunches for him and he loves it. Interestingly, if I offer him raw food (avocados, fruit, nut butter, raw sprouted bread) he will not eat cooked food. But if I offer cooked food, he will not eat raw food. Anyway, he goes to daycare every day and I pack the following foods for him:

sliced fresh fruit (he adores grapes, apple, strawberries, oranges)
sprouted spelt bread squares (plain or with olive oil or coconut butter spread)
avocado slices/cubes (dipped in lemon water to stay fresh)
raw almond milk smoothie (with OJ or blended fruit)

That's all he can eat right now on the raw diet because he's so little. He enjoys raw almond butter at home but I can't send it to school in his lunches because of the nut allergies other children suffer from. The almond milk doesn't seem to pose a problem. Don't know why?

Hope this helps. I think when my son gets bigger, I'll be able to send him with more interesting raw lunches. For now, I send some cooked vegan food as well as some organic protein.

Good luck.

[Mical]

I am fairly certain that you are decribing one of these: http://www.laptoplunches.com/

I also have one of these lunch boxes and love it tons! It really forces me to bring healthier lunches.

My daughter starts kindergarten in the fall, and in Pre-K I always struggled with finding the right tupperware, getting things to fit and (yikes!) ending up using way too many plastic bags (can anyone say bad for the environment and toxic?).

I ordered the bento box kit. Very spendy, but hopefully worth it. Thanks for pointing that out! Hopefully will last through most of elementary school.

[24 Carrots]

Find out what OTHER kids are going to think of the food she takes to school. You could do this by having a party or get-together at your house with 6 or 10 of her schoolfriends or kids her age from other schools and make a smorgasboard on the table with all types of raw food choices.

Watch and observe which foods they do not question or seem to like and which ones they have an adverse reaction to right away. Sometimes it works against you if you call something "raw cake" because they are expecting something very different.

I say all this because my son went to 1st grade eating almost all raw and his entire eating lifestyle was DESTROYED by other kids in the cafeteria making fun of his food. After that he went for SAD foods with a VENGEANCE.

It is VERY hard to have a youngster eat healthy when going to public school. Homeschooling would be the easier choice if you have that as an option.

Just my experience with just one child, but anyhow, there it is...

[24 Carrots]

P.S. I also had a birthday party for my son that year and 10-15 schoolfriends came and I felt SO BAD for my son when NO ONE wanted to even TRY the raw carrot cake. This is why I make the suggestions to "market test" the food first.

[Evelynn]

Paperbags are great but they often don't come back home for re-use...

They certainly don't, but two packs lasted me an entire year, and they're cheap. Our cafeteria doesn't have recycling bins, so I did feel bad just throwing them away. They also turn bananas black very rapidly, suck all of the moisture from apple skins and give them a cardboardy flavor, and practically invite bruising. (It was a disappointing year for me and my lunches. :D )

I would definitely invest in a lunch box if you can find one without the lead and other horrors, and you probably didn't plan on sending your daughter to school with paper bags anyway.

Oh, variety always helps. I hope I'm not insulting you by stating the obvious, but I've been swooped upon by every level of staff in my school because my friends didn't approve of the simplicity of my lunches. Her friends probably won't point fingers at fruit, but the teachers may notice. (What your daughter eats at home doesn't matter, I guess.)

Sorry I can't really help with recipes or ideas or anything, but I'm sure there are plenty of experienced moms here for that. ;)

[lodestar]

even though school is almost out i picked up some good ideas for brown-bag snack ideas. thanks to all.